As promised from my previous Motivation Mondays post, I will make an update every three months and when I *fingers crossed* finally reach my goal weight. Once I do *still keeping those fingers crossed*, I will still write about how I hopefully maintain it every three months. However, life happened and for reasons, I will discuss later in this post, I am making this update five months later instead.

What I’ve been up to in the ‘getting healthy’ front

• I started a new habit of walking at least an hour every day. This was, and still is, such a struggle because I work the night shift. I need to start walking before it’s 6:30 in the morning unless I wanted to get sunburned. I burn easily and this was a hard lesson to learn. Fortunately, I am able to work from home on most days and get to do this. I live in a slightly more rural part of Cavite, so there are hills everywhere. The type of slopes a treadmill can only try to emulate. Unfortunately, my walks have been rare since June because it would rain or drizzle most mornings, and on the day where the sun shines,
• TEA. No, not the type you spill when there’s drama. My metabolism has always been problematic, but tea and fruits have made it better.
• I consume at least three pieces of fruit per day. My absolute favorite fruit is Indian mangoes. We used to have a tree at home which is probably why I love this as much as I buy a new batch of apple whenever we start running low. These have improved my metabolism and although I don’t visibly lose any fats, I feel less bloated.
• I am enrolling myself in the gym in a week. I finally found a gym that had programs I was interested in trying near where I live! (I’m also waiting for a week to enroll because *payday*) So let’s see what happens on my next update. 🙂

Weight Update

Starting Weight: 180 lb

Weight Goal: 130 lb (it says 110 lb which is the lower end of my healthy weight because I’m ambitious lol)

Current Weight: 167 lb

‘Progress’ & How I feel about it

I feel like I’m going crazy to be completely honest. The first two months were such a struggle because as you can see from that graph above, I was either losing 2 lb or gaining them back every Monday morning that I weigh myself. There was even a time where I sat beside the weighing scale and started crying because I felt so trapped in this fat, sickly body. That. Just. Would. Not. Lose. Weight. It was also one of the reasons why I didn’t make any updates until today because it took a while to reconcile with the idea that I lost a little weight over the course of months. I admit that it’s totally my fault, but writing it out to claim accountability over it gave me a lot of anxiety. I swear it took me around two months just to finish writing about this. 😦

But I guess the best thing about it is I’m at least trying now. I try to watch myself when eating and portion my meals. I jog in place while working when it’s raining outside. I’m also an emotional eater (and my emotions have been a rollercoaster the past three years, so there’s that), so whenever I crave food when I know I’m not hungry, I try not to give in to that craving. Losing weight takes serious commitment and a lifestyle change. Let’s see if I get any more progress in three months, and hopefully the weight loss will be bigger than 13 lbs! In the meantime, I’ll look at my photos from 2013 (that flat tummy!!!) as inspiration. Haha!

I’m not gonna lie, this is meant to be a filler post of sorts. I’m trying to get my shit together in updating all the old posts that were migrated from my old blog and has only recently finished updating my Hanoi posts from when I went to Vietnam in 2015. Saying 2015 make it seem like it has been a long time ago, but in my mind, it still feels like it’s only been a few months. It’s really weird going back to all the old posts because I can clearly see the phases I was in while I was writing them. Although that was clearly what I meant for my blog to do, reminiscing about the past has been a bittersweet exercise. So many things have happened that I’m still trying to get over from.. But I digress. This post was supposed to be about my weight loss goals and how I wrote something similar last year. As it turns out, just writing about it will not make it happen but here I am again!

Current Weight: 180 lb

Weight Goal: 130 lb

Why I need to lose weight: I think it’s important to always keep in mind why weight loss is important. I’ve been crazy sick the past few months and I have repeatedly been told that I needed to lose weight. I have officially crossed over to being Obese from being Overweight a few months ago. 130 lb is even cutting it close from a healthy BMI to Overweight, but I have learned to set realistic goals for myself.

How I plan to shed off the excess weight:

As they always say, healthy diet and exercise is the key to shedding off the pounds. Unlike last year, where I believed in actively [and abruptly] avoiding so many things, which in turn made me crave it more on cheat days, I am taking a go at this more slowly this time. I made it my resolution to not drink soda, and I haven’t had it since the beginning of the year. I’ve cut down on my red meat intake, and now I’m working on cutting down on my rice intake. After the hives fiasco, I lost 2+ kilos in two weeks without doing anything other than eating only fruits and vegetables. I now reach for fruits whenever I feel like snacking and it has greatly improved my metabolism as well.

As for exercising, I still have no plans in enrolling in a gym. I’ve tried it before and only lasted a month as I got bored with the routine workouts. Running on a treadmill with the same view drives me crazy, so I probably would start jogging (most likely brisk walking) with my dog around the neighborhood instead. I’m looking into taking random classes because I enjoy variety. I’ll keep you guys posted once I find something I enjoy.

I’ll do another check in after three months. There hopefully have been improvements by then. Let’s keep our fingers crossed!